Revisiting Sensitivity

 

So, let’s talk about sensitivity… cultural and personal.

I see no reason for us to question all things obvious about me.  But I do have some pet peeves.  It’s just that MY pet peeves won’t get any kind of national attention.  In fact, if you ask the people who peeve me (and they shall remain nameless for the sake of respect) they will say I am being ridiculous.  And you can take THAT prediction to the bank…. Because it will be true on a whole bunch of levels.  I am going to be intentionally ridiculous.  I am going to be sincere and, consequently, accidentally ridiculous.  I am going to rant and rave.  And I will leave it up to you to decide which is which and if it deserves any kind of national attention, crashing of statutes or burning of buildings.  In the end, I hope you see it for what it is:  an attempt at entertainment.

I have been doing a lot of ruminating (think cows and multiple stomachs and you get the idea of thoroughness and duration… and what it comes out as in the end might be the same?!).  I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to do with my life back when I cared more and head been kicked in the head less.  I am looking at relationships I had with people I worked for or with and I wish I had done a few things differently IF they were going to do exactly the same thing they did…

Occasion #1.

I lived in Paradise for six years.  Then I had to go to Purgatory for an extended stay.  At first, I didn’t realize it was no longer heaven – it was sunny and pleasant initially… then I had to get a job to support the base lifestyle to which I wanted to be accustomed.  But my new boss, when he hired me, said something I will never forget if I live to be 400 years old:  “I offered this job to a man, but he decided to move to New Mexico, so I guess I am asking you to come work with us.”  I was SO EXCITED that I got offered a job that would forever change my outlook and life direction that I didn’t even KNOW that I should have been offended and called Headquarters that he committed a grievous gender-based slam to my face.  Or I could have just told him where HE could go … but it wasn’t in me back then to say that.  Now I probably would.  Plus, I wanted the job.

It’s not that I am thick-skinned.  It is that I am at times an airhead and miss direct hits as they are intended.  So, he got away with that.  And two years later, when he was reassigned to another post with people he thought he might like more than our “suburbials” (as Jimmy Walker coined the term), the new guy who took the post was the exact opposite.  I was upset by something and went in to talk to the new boss.  As you can imagine, it took me by complete surprise that he ran around his desk and swooped me into his arms to “console” me … and that creeped me out (as well it should, I would find out years later.   He no longer has that kind of a job anymore.)  To quote my friend Raelynn:  “Trust your gut.  If it FEELS weird, it IS weird.”   I only wish I could give every young woman in the universe that advice.

Occasion #2

In my field of work, back then in that part of the country, it was customary to call ALL adults by their first name unless, of course, they were titled people like politicians, priests and principals.  Even the teenagers called us by our first names – and that was fine because it gives sort of an extended illusion that you have imbibed from the Fountain of Youth.  All are your peers.  All is friendly.  All is well.  Kumbya, kum-bay-ahhhhh…

And then I moved to the frozen tundra for a few decades.  Cold climate.  Cold people.  Cold harsh reality everywhere you turn.  Any efforts in my field of work were easily 25 years behind-the-times, consequently there were no full-time jobs in exactly my line of work.  I did things that were “close enough” for less money than you can imagine.  And They practice a totally self-serving maneuver of giving tiny little, if any, raise based on extra things they load onto your job title.  If you have the mental image of a donkey, loaded down and stumbling along the cliffside path of the Grand Canyon, you are in the right field of dreams.

 My new boss was a Title + Surname person.  He insisted I be called by “Miss + Surname.”  He felt that it set up a culture of respect.  (No thanks, I can EARN my respect in my field.)   Here’s why his method makes me bristle:

Mis-take (something you screw up).  Mis-appropriate (something that puts a person in jail). Mis-givings (Bad feelings based in intuition).  Mis-cellaneous (something no one needs).  Mis-understanding (when things go awry personally).  Mis-informed (when incorrect information is put forth).  To miss-the mark (ineptitude).  Really the only Mis I can think of that I like is “mistletoe.”  And even then, like buying property, it’s only good if you’re in the right location.  Given all the negatives that are attached to “MISS” I think THAT is quite a burden to attach to my persona and my last name.

                               

Occasion #3. 

A village to the north of my state is named after a famous Polish general that my family-of-origin deeply respects.  Wikipedia lists him as follows:  “Kazimierz Michał Władysław Wiktor Pułaski of Ślepowron was a Polish nobleman, soldier and military commander who has been called, together with his counterpart Michael Kovats de Fabriczy, "the father of the American cavalry."   He is Polish, and he is military and he helped America.  Really, the guy didn’t need to be or do much more to be a folk-hero in the eyes of my people.  And his last name seems kind of simple.  And yet the rednecks up here pronounce it:  “pool-ask-eye” or maybe more like “pull-ass-k-eye.”  When I actually told my family that, two of the men almost needed cardiac attention.  They began yelling:  “what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-them??!!!!  The man gave his LIFE for this country and they can’t even pronounce his name!!!”  (Pull-ahs-kee).  Do you know why a lot of Polish names end in “ski” – because we can’t all spell toboggan. 

Have my people torn down anyone else’s statues because we are offended?  No.  We accept the reality that many nations, many levels of intelligence, and many levels of class are co-existing here.  We do not have an axe to grind.  We go to work, we fall in love, we raise our families and life goes on.  This is, in some part, why when the European immigrants came to this country, they lived in communities together.  It was to keep parts of their culture alive as they began to assimilate into the bigger picture of America.  Language, customs, religious practices, values – all these things survive longer within the broader embrace of a community.

A tip of the hat at this point to the Greeks.  For all the literature and culture that the Greeks have to their credit I want to say again that there is one Greek custom they should re-iterate to their kids.  I was at my friend’s funeral Mass.  She had died, truly, before her Time, in midlife … another victim of the “C” word.  No, not this one of 2021 – the real C-word:  “Cancer.” 

I sat in the back of the Greek church – at times with my eyes closed just breathing in the incense and the palpable holiness of the place; then I’d re-open and study the hagiography (holy pictures of saints).  I know some basic Greek and was able to decipher a few of the captions around pictures – names and phrases.  And then the priest stood behind the casket, but facing the congregation, and he LIFTED THE LID OF THE CASKET.  Holy smokes!  What was he doing?!?  From somewhere behind him on a small table he took a small piece of cake on a plate (no it wasn’t communion) and put it INSIDE the casket!  And I thought to myself, good-gracious, I have found “my people”  - any Church that buries you with cake for the Journey is a truly Great Church.  He closed the lid and began to chant:  Hagios ‘o Theos …. Hagios o’Thanatos… Eleison … ‘emas.   (Holy God, Holy Un-dying One, Have mercy on us.  Amen.)  All I can say is I hope to marry a Greek man some day so I can be buried from their Church….

Wow.  Cake.  They send you out with a piece of cake.  I did “corner” one of the little ladies for the back-story at the funeral luncheon when I saw the entire sheet cake sitting on the counter with one very obvious wedge missing …. Apparently, they call it “resurrection” cake because it is made of wheat (and berries) reflecting the words of Jesus, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat …”

It is for this reason I reiterate the importance of being open to cultures and more than one way of doing things.  We all bring something cool to the table.  Let us live in peace and openness.  And let us end with cake.

Occasion #4.

It is not for lack of a hair dresser that my hair is long and a better color than it used to be.  It is not one more of the inane things people can blame on COVID.   We just made it through a national pandemic and the vanity of Americans is more obvious than ever before.  People were bitching about wearing a small blue mask – which in the scope of inconveniences is really NO BIG DEAL – while others were getting seriously ill and being carted off to the hospital.  Avoiding the polarization of politics – the only point I am making is the importance of identifying molehills and mountains and not confusing them with each other…. An art which we aren’t even CLOSE to mastering. 

Decades ago, someone once said to me:  “I think women over 40 with long hair look ridiculous.”  It was a woman who said that.  It stuck with me as a sweeping generalization upon which I intended to put the proverbial “kibosh.”  So here I am very well past 40 and my hair is going the direction God intended it to go …. Long …. And I am loving it.  I am giving Crystal Gayle no competition yet at this point (youngsters:  you have to look her up.)  Perhaps I am growing my hair for the same reason Phil Robertson & the Dynasty men grow beards: because we can.  But my reason for coloring is different.

I cannot count on only one hand the number of hair dressers I have asked to change my color one way or the other and they argued with me.  This has been all my life.  One wouldn’t let me go lighter; the other wouldn’t let me go darker, etc. ... all the while I hold my checkbook at the ready to enforce the point of what I want.  They end up doing it the exact color or style that they wanted and it’s MY hair!   At this juncture in my personal history I want to stand up and definitively say: “If one of my clients can dye her hair yellow-blonde with fuschia highlights and wonder why people at the synagogue were staring at her:  GET OFF MY BACK TURKEYS!  It is, in the end, MY HAIR.  And all I asked was to go up or down a shade – not dye the American flag into my head.”  There.  I said it.  Now hand me my box of magic Fountain of Youth coloring and have a nice day.  It cost me $75 to fight with them but $10 to have it my way…. You do the math.

So, we have here four examples:  a gender offense, a vocational offense, a cultural offense and a personal offense.  In the end all I can offer you in all seriousness is that:  being offended can only become a way of life if you let it.  I think of two expressions told to me in my lifetime: “If you look for a reason to be offended you can always find one” and “Let go; let God.”  The latter has much to be said for it; as a Life Philosophy even though it’s merely 4 words it covers a lot of territory; I’ve been surprised by that. 

It is remarkable that forgiveness is so much more difficult and makes you so much stronger personally than any amount of push-back and “getting even” could conjure up.  So I submit to you a favorite in my collection of Life Adages:  “Don’t be a bitter person; be a better person.”

 

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*Post-script: the opinions above are not meant to excuse anyone’s bad behavior/manners, etc., nor are they intended to deny the importance of legal and ethical means of securing the life, liberty and happiness each person is entitled to by the Constitution.  Taxes and DMV fees may apply.  See your local dealer for term limits and exclusions which may also apply.  You have a right to an attorney.  Anything you say can and will be held against you in the court of law.  From sea to shining sea with the purple mountains’ majesty not excluded.  (you get my point – we have to Mirandize everything we say with exclusions).  Good night and good news.  Amen.

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Nuchem and the "damn evil people"

 

“Damn evil people …” he scowls.  

Nuchem, the favorite character I love to detest on the series 
“Shtisel” says this phrase routinely.  He usually is referencing the Zionists, or the Gentiles, or anyone who crosses him:  “Damn evil people.”  In his own esteem, he is a blameless orthodox Jew who only cuts the corners he feels he is entitled to cut… We all know how that is.  We’d like to hold all others to the highest of standards – Biblical and otherwise – but for ourselves, ah, “mercy, mercy!”

Perhaps it is because of people like Nuchem – and every religion and group of people has them – Jesus taught His followers to pray to G-D in heaven, “and forgive us, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  Impossible, right?  This is why we pray it, and don’t declare that we’ve accomplished it already.  Because if we were already forgiving that perfectly then we’d be … oh, probably dead, because dead people are the only ones who have completely let go.  And even then, I would make a case for the tormented souls who come back to haunt houses or pester those that wronged them.  Even in death, perhaps there are some that cannot let go.

My friend Mary’s saintly mother always used to say to us: “Let go, and Let God” and she’d smile at us.  Perhaps she knew how that saying tormented us, each being Type-A personalities.  We like justice.  We like peace and order.  And I think we each secretly suspect that “if everyone would just do what I say I wouldn’t have to be so bossy!”  (I have a picture that says that in my house.  In the photo, I am four years old in my little pinafore dress, pointing my finger at the camera, mouth wide open.)  “If everyone would just do what I say, I wouldn’t have to be so bossy!” 

I think of Nuchem and his “damn evil people” grumblings when I clean the litter box.  Here’s why.  When I was growing up – back when dinosaurs roamed the earth freely – we used paper bags for groceries.  Then someone decided we were killing too many trees with making our paper bags.  So, they put the social pressure out and paper bags all but vanished.  In their place came wispy plastic bags.  And this is where the old adage “history repeats itself” comes into play.  Happily, we used plastic bags. 

The new set of “damn evil people” began patronizing us referring to them as “single-use-bags.”  I almost attacked the last person who said that to me.  They ARE ABSOLUTELY NOT SINGLE-USE BAGS!  In fact, at one point I had so many of these multi-use bags at my house (tucked handily into …. One big bag) it’d require a dump truck to clean them out if I decided to, well, die or something.  I re-used them for moving casseroles to friends’ houses if I thought the food would spill.  I threw sneakers in them and tossed them into my vehicle in case I needed sneakers in an emergency.  (What kind of emergency requires sneakers, I do not know.  Probably situations where flip-flops break or shoes get wet.)  The multi-use list goes on and on, but my all-time-favorite use for those bags was to clean up after the amazing cat that loads the litterbox like four or five times a day. 

So, the single-use bags were definitely NOT single-use for me…. And now They are demonizing my plastic bags.  One guy said to me:  “use paper bags.”  Clearly, we stopped caring about trees.  Clearly, he has never cleaned a cat box.  Clearly, he has bought the damn evil lie.

Another moment of educating The Millenials:  this is NOT about saving sea turtles.  The U.S. wasn’t dumping OUR plastic bags.  Your mother, your grandmother and I have all been re-using them.  It was some ignorant – and I say that in Christian charity (what’s left of mine) – foreign country that was just dumping their landfill into the ocean.  THE PEOPLE are the problem.  Not the turtles.  Not the bags.  IT’S THE PEOPLE. 

And, not only is this NOT about saving turtles.  It is about money.  Because – guess what – I now have to BUY specially produced, recycled …. Plastic bags with handles you can tie in order to scoop out the litterbox 4 times a day.  Thicker bags, one use, and I now get to pay for it.

Damn evil people.

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An Open Graduation Letter 2021 - the Influence of Walt Disney

 

Dearly Beloved Graduate,

Just a few notes to add to the traditional graduation “card” that pretends it knows you personally.  What gave me this idea to add-on and then blog this was the silhouette of Mouse Ears on a card that quoted Walt Disney. 

Perhaps Disney is an important man to consider as you plan for your future career, in that, for a guy that started drawing mice, he ended up successful beyond his wildest dreams.  Can you imagine Disney’s parents when he was planning his future: “Walt, get down here and work on your college applications!  You’re not going to make a living sitting around drawing mice!” 

Did Walt have insight into the soul of humanity? He had such an idealistic view of young men and women:  He portrayed all his young women as potential-princesses, and all his young men as handsome, daring adventurous.  He was not afraid to show us how an ugly person could be evil (pick a villain) or an exotic person could be wicked (Cruella D’ville).  He taught at least two generations of children to believe they could fly on a carpet or speed on a horse or that teapots and kettles could sing, dance, have compassion.  Perhaps he was showing us a lot about a life that he hoped for during wartime, at least a hope his own children could enjoy, and, by extension, also those children who met his cartoons.  I had heard once that he was an unhappy man.  I found that ironic in that his whole enterprise made so many people at least momentarily optimistic and happier.  My generation “lived” for Sunday night’s “Wonderful World of Disney” on television … what movie would it be this week?!  Perhaps he epitomized the line from the prayer of St. Francis that said: “It is in giving that we receive…”  So, he gave happiness. 

I just sped-read through his extensive wikipedia biography.  This year he would be 100 years old if he was alive.  He died of lung cancer in his 60’s… thanks to cigarettes without filters … duly noted.  But more importantly his efforts in cartooning, media, and the manufacturing of happiness through them was very extensive.  He showed us the value of hard work and persistence in his chosen field.  He was a philanthropist to faith-based (Jewish) charities.  One of his workers said of him: “His treatment of people – and by this I mean all people – can only be called exemplary.”  Would that someone could say that of you and I when we finish the race of our life! 

Our culture puts a lot of pressure on young people to know what they want to be “when they grow up.”  I think perhaps our efforts and considerations might be better applied to study how we can make this world a safer, healthier, holier, happier, and kinder place.  What is the unique talent or passion that you can bring forth – in putting your best effort to be your best self forward, you will find meaning.  It will not come without struggle, for no good thing ever does.  You may have days you want to just plain not get out of bed.  But you should pick yourself up, talk positive things in your own head, and move forward to make the most of each day.  Looking forward, life looks long indeed.  You can’t imagine yourself being old and having survived some of the things that you will inevitably encounter.  BUT, from the mid-point of life you will realize how swiftly Time flew. 

Develop a sense of integrity and spirituality, for they will be strong companions on your path.  Understand that not all people come to the table with the same sense of responsibility, talents, or values that you hold dear.  Don’t resent them for it – just be the Light.  That’s all, just be the Light. 

Sincerely,  Chris Arabik, M.A.

Lessons from the Driver's Seat

There are two types of drunks, or so I’ve heard:  crying drunks or angry drunks.  As he sat next to me in the passenger seat of my little compact car, I considered how little I knew about him other than his name and his obvious problem.  I was only out of university a few months with the ink still drying on my ministry degree and was setting up a new life in the southwest.  Would this guy I barely knew fly into a rage and leave my body in the street and steal my car?  Or what?  It was a situation I put myself in thinking I could help this poor soul. 

I had just been hired as a youth minister but the start up was slow and my mornings were kind of delayed – which was JUST FINE with me.  No need to go into the office, if I was going to be there in the evening with religious education classes.  So I was hanging around in my living room, playing guitar, enjoying life and looked out the window to see this guy wandering up the street.  I was renting a room in a house with some other Christian women; this guy lived in one of the similar men’s households up the street.  But this particular day he wasn’t walking so well.  I went flying out my front door – actually just glad to see a familiar face – and when I asked him how he was, he said, “well I guess you can tell...”  And he was right.   

All of a sudden thinking on my feet became a new talent I discovered.  “Hey, you know how I got a new job with teenagers?  I need to take a ride into the city to see one of the rehab places and kind of check them out, do you want to come for a ride with me?”  And that is how it began.  We talked, mostly about his predicament:  his ex-wife had laid down the law that unless he was sober, he had zero visitation rights with his ten-year-old son, and that was killing his spirit.  I talked to him about using that as a goal to get sober.  It was the most worthy reason anyone could want, and he was on board with the goal, but the thought of getting sober seemed to be beyond him.  I suggested a particular place and he replied: “Oh no, I hear that you have to be poured-through the door.” Huh?  You had to arrive drunk?  It made no sense to me.   

As we entered the city, the sight of some street triggered panic in him.  He said, “Hey, just let me out here.  I really need a drink.”  And that is when I wondered how this was going to turn:  crying or angry.  I had only one card that I could think to play:  “You know how God says it’s a sin to lead someone else to sin?  I can’t take you to a bar.  You wouldn’t want to make me sin would you?”  And that kind of tweaked his reasoning powers for a minute.  And then he started to be sad.  I won’t say he burst out crying - i can’t remember exactly – but when we pulled into the driveway of the rehab, someone was there to meet us in the driveway and my friend walked, almost dejectedly, into the building.  

 

A few weeks later, he was back in the neighborhood and things were different.  He was in the pool with …. his ten-year-old son playing water volleyball.  It is a type of joy I had never seen before – a reunion born of intense personal struggle on his part.  I was so proud of him.   

In retrospect, it seems to me that if I had a daughter who did what I did, namely:  drove into the city with a man she barely knew, I might be angry that I raised a child with so little good sense for personal safety.  But I will tell you this:  even though I was driving that little blue Plymouth Champ, Someone Else was clearly in the driver’s seat.  I somehow needed to learn to be brave for a greater cause.  Comfort and security don’t teach you those kinds of lessons.  If we leave people on a road broken and confused, we miss an opportunity.  I don’t know if every single opportunity is meant to be seized outright, or if it’s just that the voice of God or His gentle hand takes us where we need to go almost beyond our own reckoning.  I think the latter is the case. 

I don’t have an exclusive or even frequent outreach ministry to drunk people.  A friend once gave me a tour of her place of employment – an inner city outreach – and honestly, I was so freaked by the characters around me that I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.  The guy with a ring on his finger made of the tines of a fork kind of threw me over the edge.  Don’t' ask me why, I’m not exactly sure.  All I can say is that my comfort zone was very clear to me in that moment.  Only infrequently do I find myself in places that scare me to the core.  Perhaps the aging process has tightened my boundaries a bit more.   

I also don’t make it any kind of personal mission to pick up hitchhikers.  And yet less than a decade later, on the East coast, there was a new “Driver’s Seat Lesson” for me to be learned.  I was between jobs.  I was cranky because I couldn’t find a ministry job that paid a living wage.  I had a Master’s degree, some great experience and strong job skills and found nothing of interest anywhere on the horizon.  I was put-out with my circumstances and in a funk. 

My friends called me for dinner.  I had become everyone’s #1 Choice of babysitter, especially for cranky kids because my tolerance was great.  I was actually looking forward to dining with this young family and having a peaceful evening with adults my age.  The caveat was this:  It was snowy and bitter, bitter cold outside.  I had to drive 15 minutes to get there in like, negative 5 degrees with a nasty windchill.  I bundled up and headed out in my slate blue Buick Skyhawk.  Down on the edge of the boulevard I turned the corner and saw a figure walking on the side of the road – sidewalks, long since swallowed up in winter precipitation.  She wore a red parka and was incredibly skinny.  This is the very weather that the founding fathers called “Fit for Neither Man nor Beast.”   

I pulled alongside her – the only car visible on the street for a mile – and said, “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”  She said, “I’m not going the way you are.”  I reassured her, “That’s not important.  I will take you where you need to go.”  She crawled into my front seat.  I’d be surprised if she was even 100 pounds.  Her parka may have swallowed up her frame, but it didn’t seem to be insulating her too well.  As she spoke to me, a tiny drop of moisture hung from the tip of her nose.  Welcome to the Eastern states.  You see it so often in December through February that your stomach forgets to hurl after a while.   

“Where can I take you?”  “Can you take me to Wolf Street?”  Sure.  We drive on.  I asked, “Where on Wolf Street?"  “Do you know where ‘Fantasy Nights’ is?”  Oh, man alive.   “Please don’t tell me you are a dancer …” I replied.  Trust me when I say she was not anything like the girls on the advertisements for such places.  She admitted:  “I tried it once.  They threw a chair at me.”  That right there will give you pause; the phrase Gentleman’s Club is also part of the whole picture of the Lie.  She shared with me her utter inability to secure a decent job.  She had no completed high school education.  She had no work experience.  Not even the drug store would trust her to run a cash register.  This woman was the portrait of why EVERYONE should strive to get a good education.  She was in her 30’s I think and unless she made a plan, she had absolutely no future.   

I suggested she try one of the warehouses in the area that made clothes.  She said, “But who would hire me?”  I had stopped the car in the neighborhood where she had asked me to take her by this time.  I looked at her earnestly and said, “You don’t have to tell everyone everything about your past.  But you do have the ability to earnestly ask someone in plain English to give you a new start.  I think you may find someone willing to help you.”   

As she exited the car, her response took me by surprise:  “ I guess I will just have to trust, won’t I?”  The very thing that I, with my education, my experience, and my “me-ness” was NOT doing:  trusting God.  I had been in a perpetual bellyaching mode and yet I had so many things going for me:  I had an amazing ability to pick up temp jobs, be comfortable in interview situations, networking skills, not having to worry about getting a ride or finding clean clothes to wear or going to a dentist to fix my appearance.  Here I was miffed that I couldn’t find a ministry job when I was failing Faith 101 by not putting it all in God’s hands with a grateful attitude.  Shame on me. 

Here she was, with her street smarts and bitter life experience that taught her to NOT trust anyone.  There is no way she could have been referencing the act of trusting people.  She was referring to Himself Upstairs.  And I got the message He had sent her to give me.  I still find it ironic that I drove her out of my way so that we could have our Lesson together – maybe she wasn’t real, perhaps she was an angel with a story to snap-me-out-of-it.  But it was a very important lesson, nonetheless. 

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Please do not take anything in any of the above 100% true stories as an endorsement for giving rides to strangers or picking up hitchhikers.  These stories are for instructional purposes, only.  Learn from MY experiences and stay safe. 

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